1: "Maycomb was an old town, | but it was a tired town when I first knew it."

2: "We lived on the main residential street in our town--

3: Atticus, Jem and I, | plus Calpurnia our cook."

4: "Jem and I found our father satisfactory: | He played with us, | read to us, | And treated us with courteous detachment."

5: "Calpurnia was something else again... | Always ordering me out of the kitchen, asking me why I couldn't behave as well as Jem when she knew he was older."

6: "Early one morning as we were beginning our day's play in the back yard, Jem and I heard something next door in Miss Rachel Haverford's collard patch." | "We went to the wire fence to see if there was a puppy...instead we found someone sitting looking at us."

8: "Dill was a curiosity... | ...He was a year my senior but I towered over him."

9: "...By the end of August our repertoire was vapid from countless reproductions, and it was then that Dill gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out." | The Radley place fascinated Dill. In spite of our warnings and explanations it drew him as the moon draws water, but drew him no nearer than the light pole on the corner, a safe distance from the Radley gate. There he would stand, his arm around the fat pole, staring and wondering."

10: "Inside the house lived a malevolent phantom." | "People said he existed, but Jem and I had never seen him." | "Any stealthy small crimes committed in Maycomb were his work."

11: "A Negro would not pass the Radley place at night." | "Radley pecans would kill you." | "A baseball hit into the Radley yard was a lost ball..." | And no questions asked.

12: "You gonna run out on a dare?" asked Dill. | "Just go up and touch the house." | Jem brightened. "Touch the house, that all?"

13: "Jem threw open the gate and sped to the side of the house, slapped it with his palm and ran past us, not waiting to see if his foray was successful."

14: "Dill left us in Early Semptember, to return to Meridian." | "We saw him off the five o'clock bus and I was miserable without him until it occurred to me that I would be starting school in a week."

15: "Jem was careful to explain that during school hours I was not to bother him...approach him...embarrass him...or tag along behind him...I was to stick with the first and he was to stick with the fifth." | "Jem condescended to take me to school the first day, a job usually done by one's parents, but Atticus had said Jem would be delighted to show me where my room was." | "In short, I was to leave him alone."

16: "Before the first morning was over, Miss Caroline Fisher, our teacher, hauled me up to the front of the room and patted the palm of my hand with a ruler, then made me stand in the corner until noon."

17: "As I was the last to leave, I saw her sink down into her chair and bury her head in her arms. Had her conduct been more friendly toward me, I would have felt sorry for her. She was a pretty little thing."

18: "As the year passed...I ran by the Radley place as fast as I could, not stopping...one afternoon as I raced by, something caught my eye...something about one of the trees attracted my attention." | "Some tin foil was stocking out in a knot hole just above my eye level, winking at me in the afternoon sun. I stood on tiptoe, hastily looked around one more, reached into the whole, and withdrew two pieces of chewing gum."

20: "Two days later Dill arrived in a blaze of glory." | "I know what we are going to play." | "Boo Radley."

21: "We did not see Atticus standing on the sidewalk looking at us." | "What are you all playing?" | "Nothing." | "Atticus's arrival was the second reason I wanted to quit the game."

22: Jem asked if we could go over and sit by Miss Rachel's fishpool with Dill as this was his last day in Maycomb.” | “Dill and Jem were simply going to peep in the window with the loose shutter to see if they could get a look at Boo Radley.”

23: “We crept to the side of the house, around the window...we rasied [Dill] and he caught the window sill.” | “Then I saw the shadow.”

24: "Jem leaped off the porch and galloped towards us. Halfway through the collards I tripped; as I tripped the roar of a shotgun shattered the neighborhood.” | “Dill and I rolled through and were halfway to the shelter of the school yard's solitary oak when we sensed that Jem was not with us. We ran back and found him struggling in the fence, kicking his pants off to get loose. He ran to the oak tree in his shorts.”

25: "You cant just take that back boy." | [Cecil Jacobs] had announced in the school yard that Scout Finch's daddy defended Negroes. I denied it, but told Jem." | "What'd he mean sayin' that?" I asked. | "Nothin'." Jem said. "Ask Atticus, he'll tell you."

27: "Just what did he do, Cal?" | "Old Mr. Bob Ewell acussed him of rapin' his girl an' had him arrested and put in jail--" | "Mr. Ewell?" "Why, Atticus said they were absolute trash."

28: "You goin' to the court this morning?" Jem asked Miss Maudie. | "I am not. 't's morbid, watchin' a poor old devil on trial for his life..." | "We held off until noon...after dinner, we stopped by for Dill and went to town."

29: “Tom Robinson took the oath and stepped into the witness chair. Atticus very quickly induced him to tell us: | Tom was twenty-five years of age; he was married with three children; he had been in trouble with the law before: he once received thirty days for disorderly conduct.” | “Tom, what happened to you on the evening of November twenty first of last year?”

30: “Mr. Finch,” he said. I was goin’ home as usual that evenin’ an’ when I passed the Ewell place Miss Mayella were on the porch...she says for me to come here a minute...Th’ old door’s off it’s hinges an’ fall's comin’ on pretty fast...I went up the steps an’ she motioned me to come inside...I pulled the door back n’ forth and those hinges was alright... She says to just step on that chair yonder an’ git that box down from on top of the chiffarobe. So I done what she told me, when next thing I knows she—she’d grabbed me round th’ legs...I got down offa that chair an turned around an’ she—she hugged me. She hugged me round the waist...She reached up and kissed me ‘side of the face... I didn’t wanna harm her, Mr. Finch, an I say lemme pass, but just when I say it Mr. Ewell yonder hollered through the window.”

31: “Tom, did you rape Mayella Ewell?” “I did not suh.” “Did you harm her in any way?” “I did not suh.”

32: It occurred to me that in their own way, Tom Robinson’s manners were as good as Atticus’s. Until my father explained it to me later, I did not understand the subtlety of Tom’s predicament: he would not have dared strike a white woman under any circumstance and expect to live long, so he took the first opportunity to run—a sure sign of guilt.” | “He seemed to be a respectable Negro.”

33: I shut my eyes. Judge Taylor was polling the jury: "Guilty...guilty...guilty...guilty..." I peeked at Jem: his hands were white from gripping the balcony rail, and his shoulders jerked as if each "guilty" was a seperate stab between them."

34: "If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time. It's because he wants to stay inside."

35: '"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'"